


Hi Mum, don’t mind the mess

by spaceshipdear



Series: Best vacations ever [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Friendship, F/M, M/M, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, POV Tony Stark, Past Peggy Carter/Howard Stark - Freeform, Peggy Carter Lives, Peggy is Tony Stark's mother, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rated for Explicit Language, References to Depression, Steve and Peggy can't keep their hands of each other, Tony is traumatized, mild explicit language i guess, the timeline is completely wonky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 10:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20691929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceshipdear/pseuds/spaceshipdear
Summary: “What on Earth…?” Peggy stops in her tracks at the entrance of the workshop.“Hey, hi Mum, don’t mind the mess. Wanna come in? There’s coffee,” Tony quick-fires to hide his surprise and walks closer to the small station where he stores snacks, the coffee maker and apparently an entire collection of screwdrivers. Mhm he wondered where those were.“Hum, scratch that,” he wrinkles his nose at the two day old coffee burnt crust at the bottom of the pot. “Nobody’s stomach would survive drinking this, not even yours. But I got a fine bottle of scotch somewhere.”aka, an AU where Peggy Carter is Tony Stark's mother.





	Hi Mum, don’t mind the mess

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this so many months ago. I didn't want to publish it because I had this complex and long headcanon in my head where Tony is actually Peggy's son. She had to have slept with Howard for that, although I don't ship them. So this wasn't a love story. But I couldn't seem to write more than what I came up here. It was also an excuse to write about Steve and Peggy reunion and relationship through Tony's eyes. Also the timeline here is all wrong I completely acknowledge that fact. Don't look too closely. 
> 
> I don't know, this is what it is. It's weird and I oddly like it. I hope you'll do to.
> 
> For a little background, here's my original setting : after the war and Steve's "death" Peggy and Howard start having a thing, they casually sleep together to cope with their grief. It keeps happening with Peggy refusing to actually get involved for very long time until she gets pregnant and they have to marry to keep appearances. Peggy gives birth to a boy they name Tony. The rest follows canon very, very loosely.
> 
> My usual PSA: english is not my first language and I don't have a beta, so this is probably full of mistakes and misspelling although I try my best while editing. I'm sorry about this. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, I absolutely love comments as every writer do!

“Anthony!” 

Tony’s head wipes around at the all too familiar voice. What has he done now? Because yeah, let’s be honest, he has done something. Probably.

The workshop in the basement of his Malibu house is a disaster right now. There are so much parts scattered everywhere and oil stains and burn marks and tools lying where they don’t belong that it’s impossible to make up the color of the floor. What color was the floor again? Meh. Who cares.

“What on Earth…?” Peggy stops in her tracks at the entrance of the workshop.

“Hey, hi Mum, don’t mind the mess. Wanna come in? There’s coffee,” Tony quick-fires to hide his surprise and walks closer to the small station where he stores snacks, the coffee maker and apparently an entire collection of screwdrivers. Mhm he wondered where those were. 

“Hum, scratch that,” he wrinkles his nose at the two day old coffee burnt crust at the bottom of the pot. “Nobody’s stomach would survive drinking this, not even yours. But I got a fine bottle of scotch somewhere.”

Tony starts rummaging through the empty wrapping papers and the numerous screwdrivers and general unidentifiable mess.

“Tony, it’s 11 in the morning,” Peggy says sternly, both hands on her hips while she watches him from the doorstep. 

She still hasn’t venture inside the room, like the damn floor is made of lava or something. Although considering his drill is plugged in and laying in the middle of the way, maybe stepping inside is more dangerous than lava.

Tony’s been in there for the past week, without seeing a single living soul until apparently his mother was made aware of it, by a certain _someone _probably.

“Is it?” he winces, and yeah that’s not what he should have said.

She sighs loudly and drops her hands at her sides before finally walking to him. She puts both hands on each side of his face and angles his head in different directions to take a good look.

“How long since you’ve slept?”

“You remember when we used to play floor is lava in the living room back in the Long Island estate?”

She blinks at him. She’s not happy, ugh, he should lie and say that he’s been sleeping. He hasn’t but that’s beside the point. That new suit needs to be ready. He needs it.

“You jumped from couch to couch like a cat. I wanted to do the same, it was awesome. I was just too small,” he smiles lazily as he closed his eyes with his mother’s hands still touching the clammy skin of his cheeks. It’s more an attempt to derail the conversation and her attention but it’s a fond memory nonetheless. And he needs some of those. Lately his head has been filled with far more dreadful thoughts.

“You don’t need it to be special Tony,” she says with her kindest voice. One that used to be so reassuring, and now is deeply distressing for him. He doesn’t need her to calm him down. He’s a freaking adult. And yes he needs his damn suit, because he knows what she implied. “You should sleep,” she drops her hands and looks around, “and clean this place.”

“I’m 45, mother, I don’t think you’re allowed to ask me to clean my room anymore.”

“You haven’t cleaned your own room once in your life, _son_,” she answers sarcastically. 

She hates it when he calls her ‘mother’. Honestly he doesn’t like it either. He doesn’t know why he’s such an asshole sometimes.

“Pepper rat me out, didn’t she?”

“Pepper is worried.” There’s a little warmth in his chest when she says this that Tony tries his best to ignore. “So am I.”

He slides down in a stool in front of one of the workbench and pretends to be busy.

“Have lunch with me,” she asks.

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“I’m busy, sorry, look–”

“You shut up Anthony Stark and come have lunch with your mother,” she orders and his body response is to immediately straighten. Damn pavlovian reflexes. “I’m only in Malibu for the day and I’d be damned if my son won’t spare a minute to spend time with me.”

In the kitchen, Tony sits on the counter, while Peggy starts heating up some fancy Italian dishes that he can’t recall ordering. Maybe he has. Maybe Pepper did, or Peggy. Well at least it smells good and his stomach feels way too hollow while the lasagna’s scent invades the space. 

She’s sitting in front of him in a dark blue blouse and her hair pinned high in a fancy hairdo. She always looks younger with her hair up. He wonders if by now he could be mistaken to be older than her. It will happen eventually, he knows it. She still ages. Very slowly. So slowly it’s hard to see it if you don’t know her well enough.

That single grey hair that sometimes is visibly in the ocean of dark brown curls. Those tiny lines at the corner of her eyes. The two bigger ones on each side of her mouth. 

Tony does notice. Tony knows her face by heart. He has mapped out every single feature of his mother’s face. For so long she was the only thing that mattered in his life. 

They’ve started to stop introducing Tony as Peggy’s son, otherwise it raises too many questions. Even though the entire world knows Peggy and Howard were married and had a child. 

Peggy never remarried, after. After.

But now she looks barely 45 and she has so for he better part of his life. He has accepted it. It’s not like his life isn’t this series of strange events that led him to build a giant robot suit to escape the captivity of terrorists. He kind of stopped caring about the weirdness of his life after that. Kidnapping does that to you.

After the press conference, the one where he announced he was Iron Man to the entire world while eating a cheeseburger, she was there. As always. Waiting for him to calm the fuck down in the bathroom, his hand gripping the cool ceramic surface of the sink while it felt like his chest was about to explode and spill out his organs on the sleek surface of the marble floor.

Pepper left the room to let Tony cry on his mother’s lap. Always there, always with him, since the day he was born, since the day his father’s life was taken by Barnes. 

Thank God Peggy had always been a fierce, strong and smart woman. Especially that day the Winter Soldier went after them. She ran to the trunk of the car, taking the suitcase with the serum replica while Barnes was. Doing that. That unspeakable thing. 

She couldn’t run fast enough from the Winter Soldier. Not with her leg injured in the crash. She had no choice. 

Sometimes Tony felt anger at her decision to jab the syringe full of that stupid serum in her thigh. Especially when he started growing up and understanding that his mother stopped aging, that she wasn’t really human anymore. Something had change in her. Seeing her friend (Howard was never anything more than a friend no matter how much Tony had wished his parents were actually in love and riding on rainbows to an eternal happy ending, yes young Tony was a romantic, shut it), seeing her _best _friend being murder by a ghost from her past was a trauma she never really recovered from. Another one to the list of events in her life that gave her those hollow eyes she had sometimes.

She hunted the Ghost. Hunted him until she found him. Meanwhile Tony grew up. Became whatever he was today. A genius. A billionaire. A playboy. None of it mattered. Because when his mom came back with Barnes and put him in a cell and didn’t finish him, he felt angry. 

She helped Barnes. She allocated so many resources and so much time to help him. It took him many years to understand why. And to admit, finally, that she was right to do so.

If there is one thing that his incredible mother taught him it’s that strength comes from kindness and compassion. 

When he was 17 he visited Barnes in the holding facility. It was way too easy to break the security protocols. That was when Fury and the other SHIELD goons started to realize that maybe they should ask Tony to work for them. He was better than them, smarter. Peggy never forced him to do so. She always gave him the freedom of his choices.

That day he met the man who killed his father with his bare hands. A broken man. A shell almost. So different than the photographs of the Howlies his mother kept in her study. So different than the stories she used to tell him of her adventures with these men during the war.

“If you’ve come for revenge, I understand,” Barnes whispered after he allowed Tony to observe him for several minutes in silence, pacing in front of the cell.

“I don’t do revenge. Pointless. I need to move forward, not dwell in the past.”

“You sound like you mother,” Barnes said with a crooked smile. 

“Don’t speak of her,” Tony concluded before leaving unnoticed from the security staff until they reviewed the tapes the next day.

Barnes didn’t denounce him. Never spoke to Peggy about the episode. 

And then Barnes got better. Gave them intel. Help them take down HYDRA piece by piece. Tony asked to be involved, to understand. Peggy agreed and kept her son informed of Barnes’ progress. She had stopped treating Tony like a child a long time ago anyway. 

Tony and Bucky didn’t meet each other for several years but when finally Tony confronted Barnes again, Peggy was there. By his side. And never left him ever again. It was strange, to accept this. To accept that the _thing _that murdered his father was not exactly the person standing in front of him anymore. 

“I need this to grieve him,” she confessed, later. Tony was old enough to get it. “I might never have love Howard the way you hoped but I cared for him more than you can imagine. He’s your father. He’s the reason I have you. He’s half of you. I will always love him for giving me such a beautiful and clever son.”

He didn’t cry then. Not in front of her. But after, in the back of the car driving him to a club he can’t recall the name, he let himself feel for his mother’s loss and for the indefectible love she had for him.

That day he finally understood what he had to do. He had to follow his mother’s footsteps and make sure the world was free of the monsters who created monsters, of the men who killed his father.

Freedom from his demons was fun. Until he was nearly killed by a weapon built by his father’s legacy. Since that day the nightmares never stopped. Never flattered, never left him a moment of respire.

Food had tasted good at first, when he came back and had his cheeseburger, heavenly even. Now as he chews on his probably delicious prosciutto sandwich, he simply couldn’t taste it. Slowly but surely the dread of everything that happened to him has come back to haunt him.

“Are you sleeping my darling?” Peggy’s voice has calmed down. She doesn’t sound as worried. 

Tony engulfs the rest of the food and gestures to his mouth full with one hand. Peggy rolls her eyes but smirks fondly.

“You’re avoiding to talk about this. It’s not healthy.” 

No shit. Even Tony, in his current state of delusion about his PTSD and depression creeping around the corner of his brain, knows it isn’t healthy.

“ I knof,” he sputters with still way too much crude meat in his mouth.

“I can recommend a very good psychiatrist.” 

“Yourf?”

“No. Not mine. Although mine is very capable. I doubt she would want to speak with you with everything she knows.”

“Aw, mum, you talk about me to your shrink? I’m flattered,” Tony ironizes as he swallows the last of his sandwich. 

“You don’t need to be. You’re my son, you’re the most important thing in my life. Of course I speak about you,” she says so seriously. 

Tony feels his cheek heat up with embarrassment and a tiny hint of happiness. Shit, this is nice. And not so common these days. Only Pepper can make his heart flutter lately. Not that he will ever admit it outloud. 

“Yeah, well, huh,” he says sounding stupid to his own ears.

He isn’t speechless often but now he can accept it when it happens in front of his mother.

“Also it wouldn’t be ethical from her to see you. But the offer stands. Whenever you’re ready,” Peggy finishes quietly to conclude the subject seeing how flustered it made her son. 

She wipes her mouth with a far too expensive napkin. Tony feels like this moment is over. That it’s final and she’s going to leave to do whatever the hell she came for to California. For just a day. Tony suddenly realized she’s here for him. She’s here to check up on him, to see him. His heart swells and he doesn’t want it to stop.

“How long are you staying in Miami?” Tony blurts abruptly, with an intense need to keep her presence by his side.

“I have a flight tomorrow morning first thing.”

“Oh. Where to?”

“Russia.”

“Russia?” Tony quirks an eyebrow. She hasn’t traveled to such exotic destinations for years. Not since she took her role in the council. 

“Mhm mh,” she vaguely acquiesces.

“Mother,” Tony admonishes her.

“Son,” she says just as stubbornly, crossing her arms.

He mimics her and crosses his arms in front of his torso. They remain there for a full minute, gauging each other in silence.

“They found something,” she finally concedes, arms still crossed but her smug expression flattening a little.

Tony tilts his head, waiting for her to keep talking. Another minute passed before Peggy drops her arms loosely at her sides and sighs loudly, something sad filling her eyes.

“They found Steve.”

Tony feels like he received a punch in the gut. His hands slid from his biceps and he takes a few steady breaths. He hasn’t heard this name for years. Not in his mother’s mouth anyway. 

“Rogers?”

“Yes. Steve Rogers.” The softness of her tone is unmistakable. 

“Where? How?”

Tony looks at Peggy as for a second she seems to be on the verge of cracking the hard shell that tightens her features.

“Russian drilling expedition in the arctic,” she finally answers as steady as she can seem to manage. “They repatriated his body to Moscow and we’re trying to get it back. Get _him _back.” Her voice cracks a little when she corrects herself.

Tony takes a couple of tentative steps and puts his hand on her forearm.

“Mum,” he looks into her now shiny eyes. She shakes her head to get back her composure. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know yet my darling,” she answers him with such a small voice, he’s taken with an irrepressible desire to hug her. 

He doesn’t. For some reason, he can’t. He doesn’t feel strong enough. He feels like he’s going to crumple under the weight of her sadness. A sadness she has hidden away for so many years. But here she is, in such pain. It doesn't show much but Tony knows better. He knows her by heart. And he has never seen her so heartbroken before. Not since his father died. Was killed.

He should accompany her to Russia. Should be there for her.

He wants to offer. He really wants to. The words can’t get out.

“I ought to go,” she says as she puts her hands on both his cheek. Such a simple, affectionate gesture. One that nearly drives him to tears.

When she is walking to the front door of the house, Tony is standing a few feet away, arms crossed again, a worried frown on his face.

“Hey,” he calls out and she turns around, “I’m here for you mum. Call whenever, alright?”

She smiles kindly. “Take care of yourself first my son. Then you’ll take care of me.”

A couple hours later, he receives a placeholder in his calendar for a psychiatrist appointment. For the first time in the two months he’s been back from Afghanistan, he is ready to hit the “Accept” button.

* * *

Bumping into Steve Rogers only wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else (literally nothing else, he can’t see the outline of any kind of underwear) is not how Tony wanted to start his day.

Steve has been back for two months now. When Tony thinks about the shitshow it must have been for the guy, he almost feels sympathy. Woke up to find nearly seventy years had gone by, fought a bunch of ugly motherfucking aliens, reunited with his thought-to-be-dead best friend and the love of his life. Which happens to be Tony’s own mother.

“‘Morning old man,” Tony mumbled as he makes a beeline towards the coffee maker in dire need for something to help the fog out of brain. For some unfathomable reason he seems to be sleeping now. He’s never slept better in his entire life. Even though he almost ran out of oxygen and died in outer space. Life was funny that way.

Maybe not life. Maybe Pepper. Maybe his mother. Maybe his new team. They were all a bunch of weirdos and poorly functional adult humans, God from outer space for one of them, but they did work quite well together. And they supported Tony in a way that not a lot of people did in the past. Okay maybe he can add Rhodes and Happy to the list. But it stops there. It’s a pretty fucking short list.

He had no idea that Steve Rogers would one day be part of said list.

The forth mentioned 90-year-old self-righteous idiot almost drops the second cup of coffee he was pouring. 

“Huh- hi, Tony. Hello,” Steve stammers, clearly uncomfortable. He looks down at his outfit and stares into the cup as if it’s the only option not to cross Tony’s eyes.

“Or should I call you ‘father’?” Tony tapes his chin with one finger, thoughtful.

“Oh my God.” Saying that Steve has turned red is such a understatement that Tony has no idea how to qualify the color of his cheeks. “Shut up Tony, please.”

“Oh,_ I_ should shut up? You’re standing in _my _kitchen half naked with _my mother_ probably in bed waiting for you. I have every right to be snarky, pal,” Tony argues. 

That guy’s nerves are beyond everything. Tony wishes he didn’t hate his guts, he really does but there’s this teeny-tiny voice at the back of his head always reminding him that this is the man his mother has loved her entire life instead of his father. 

“Just– aw fuck,” Steve swears which makes Tony’s eyebrows shoot up, “this is not how I wanted to meet you,” he whispers to himself.

“We shouted at each other in a giant flying military base, that’s when we meet or did you get hit on the head by aliens so hard you don’t remember it?”

“No, yeah, I remember it. It’s just. I didn’t know you were her son. Then.” Steve shakes his head. “I didn’t even know she was alive,” he continues almost to himself.

Ah right, the fuckery of it all is that Steve stayed in the coma for several weeks before waking up. 

At first Peggy had been by his side almost every day. Waiting for him to wake up. Until it was clear it wouldn’t happen any time soon, if not at all. Then he did and she was halfway across the globe with Pepper on a bloody diplomatic trip. She missed him waking up. Everyone had the order not to notice him of Peggy being still alive until she gave her go. Tony included. Then Loki decided to play God of War in the street of NYC and the two star-crossed lovers didn’t reunite until after the end of the fight.

By then Tony went back to Miami to seek Pepper, gave her the most expensive and ostentatious engagement ring he could find and now they were back in New York for business. In Tony’s family home, because he wanted to tell his mother in person. See the look of joy on her face when he’ll tell her, when they’ll tell her. Honestly Peggy loved Pepper just as much as Tony if not more. 

Or maybe Peggy’ll slap him in the face because he waited so long to finally pop the question and didn’t even do it romantically. He just took the ring out of his pocket as Pepper screamed at him coming down the stairs of the Miami house for being reckless and a self-sacrificing idiot that never thought of the people who cared about him and not even thought of himself and how much he scared her and she thought she would never see him again and oh– _you think you can redeem yourself with a big rock Tony? Of course I’ll marry you, you fucking jerk but you had to almost die to make up your mind, oh my God you almost died._ Then she proceeded to cry and hug him so fiercely, he felt his already broken rib crack some more. But it didn’t matter, she said yes. She said _yes_.

Why is that that all the women in his life always screamed at him?

“You weren’t supposed to be back so soon,” Steve finally says after several minutes of pondering from Tony. 

“Yeah, well, it’s my house. If someone’s allowed to walk in the kitchen with pretty much his dick out,” Steve winces so vigorously at that Tony is on the verge of laughing out loud, “it’s me.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “I just– can I just apologize?”

Tony blinks at that, not exactly sure what he means.

“For being half-naked?”

“No,” Steve exhales, “well yeah also for that. But mostly for being a bit of an asshole at the helicarrier, before the attack.”

That’s surprising. Tony has a hard time reconciling Steve’s apology with the stubborn goody two-shoes he meet back there.

“Why?”

“I didn’t know who you were.”

“So you’re only apologizing because you now banging my mother?”

“Jesus– _no_.” Steve grunts before continuing. “A bit yeah. There’s a bit of that. But I’ve seen you in action. I’ve seen you almost sacrificing yourself to save the rest of the world. And yeah, you’re her son. I can see it now. I can see what she gave you, how she raised you.”

This is probably the kindest thing anyone had ever said to Tony in like, forever. Beside from what his mother usually says about him. But it’s not as shocking coming from his own mother than from a near stranger.

“Let’s say you’re not the asshole I thought you were.” Steve smirks like a smug motherfucker. Maybe that’s charming for some person. It’s very exasperating to Tony. In a fond way he reluctantly realizes.

“Well, thanks.” Tony extends his hand towards Steve who looks at it and doesn’t hesitate to shake it before Tony adds, “Dad.”

And Steve groans and removes his hand so quickly it looks like it got burnt.

“Please, never do that ever again.”

Tony surprises himself with a laugh, short but genuine.

“I won’t. Felt like my tongue was going to fall as I said it.”

Steve chuckles.

“At least we agree on something.”

“What’s taking so long with that coffee, sweetheart?” The melodic voice of Peggy sings from the stairs leading into the kitchen.

She walks in and Tony feels his skin crawl when he sees his mother in her knickers and the most revealing tank top the world’s ever created.

“Oh bloody hell Tony!” She practically shouts and immediately turns on her heels to head straight back up.

He finally opens his eyes back after he screw them shut when he’s sure she’s out of view. Next to him Steve is snickering under his breath and clearly trying to repress his laughter but failing miserably.

“I need to bleach my eyes,” Tony declares, repressing a gag.

Steve fucking Rogers starts laughing like a maniac and Peggy screams from above the stairs, “quit it, it’s not funny!”

* * *

The wedding is small. Not at all what Tony had imagined. But it’s how she wanted it. Intimate, only immediate friends and family, not that they had much left in between the two of them.

Pepper and Tony are swaying from side to side to the slow music playing in the background. It’s late and the mood of the evening has died down a little. People are about to leave and Tony can’t wait to take his wife back upstairs.

His _wife_. Will he ever get use to it?

Rhodes taps his shoulder and says something about stopping to steal the woman of the evening, that he’ll have his entire life to dance with her. Tony barely hears him, too engrossed in a fluttering happiness that makes him all soft and warm. He could probably blame it on the expensive vodka Natasha brought as a gift but it’s most likely the fact that he has just married the most amazing woman in the entire universe.

Tony watches Rhodes spinning Pepper around and her laugh carries across the room. Tony smiles for himself. He turns around and spots Bucky Barnes sitting alone at a table and nursing a glass of vodka.

“Brings back good old memories from the motherland?” Tony asks a bit dickishly when he sits down next to Bucky and jerks to the glass in Bucky’s hand.

It’s his day too after all, he’s allowed to tease the former world’s deadliest assassin who’s probably going to end up as the godfather of his children.

Bucky looks into the glass and a crooked smile draws on his face.

“Wow, a smile, I feel special,” Tony ironizes. It’s not exactly true, Bucky has been smiling for about a decade now. It isn’t a recurring instance though.

But rolling his eyes at Tony is by far more frequent.

“Don’t be a asshole on your wedding day pal,” Bucky’s gravelly voice tells Tony.

“If I can’t be a asshole on my wedding day, when can I be one?”

“Ain’t you one every single day of the year?”

“Yeah, pretty much. But today I get a pass.” Tony winks.

“Alright,” Bucky concedes with a lopsided smile. 

They remain silent for a while, Tony loses himself again watching Pepper in her white immaculate dress, until Bucky speaks again.

“You look happy, Tony.”

“I am.” There’s no hesitation there. There hasn’t been in a while.

He’s not one hundred percent cured from his demons. He still has nightmares, he still zones out when his brain decides to be an asshole and remind him that he almost died a couple of times. But deep down, he has found a peace that he never expected to reach.

“You look pretty cheaper too lately,” Tony says in turn to Bucky.

Bucky glances quickly to Natasha and Clint who are playing darts next to the bar. Clint is winning and Natasha looks like she’s going to murder him. The fact that he should probably stop the show before it turns bloody crosses Tony’s mind. Oh well. Free entertainment. 

When he looks back at Bucky, there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips. That faint but clear as day kind of smile. It’s a little unnerving to witness it on Bucky Barnes’ face in reaction to a specific person. In the thirty years Tony has known the former brainwashed assassin he has never really shown interest in romantic entanglement. Not that they discuss their love lives that often but things have been very good between them lately and it might or might not have something to do with his mother, of course, but also a certain Captain.

Bucky and Tony have taken at heart their mission to tease and mock Steve very, very seriously. Bucky has been sharing so much stories, it’s ammunition for Tony and he loves it. Oddly this brought them closer than they have been in years. 

It’s a strange relationship that Tony entertains with Bucky and vise versa. The man killed his father and not for a single moment Tony would have thought Bucky would take the place he has now in his life. They both fought side by side in battle many times with the Avengers now but it goes beyond just saving people together. Tony has learnt forgiveness thanks to Bucky and it made him a better man. They are a family. A weird, very unconventional one but a family nonetheless.

Bucky’s gaze is still drawn to the two dart players and the light in his eyes is unmistakable. 

“Looks like it has something to do with a certain archer,” Tony keeps teasing.

Bucky’s eyes flash up sharply to Tony.

“What–”

“Oh come on pal, it hasn’t been a secret since the Bahrain mission. Clint practically jumped your bones in the jet after you kravmaga’ed your way through that small Doombot army.”

“That ain’t verb,” Bucky says frowning.

“Whatever.” Tony shrugs. “You two don’t have to hide.”

Bucky sighs. “We’re not. It’s just…” Bucky stops himself and looks inside his glass like it holds the answers to the universe.

“Still processing the whole liking dicks thing?”

Bucky chuckles.

“Oh no,” Bucky practically sign songs. “That’s been processed a long time ago with all the dicks I sucked in the trenches.”

“Ew no. Don’t talk about sucking dicks.” Tony feels like his ears will catch fire.

“You talked about dicks first!” Bucky says offended.

“I’m allowed to talk about dicks, you’re not!”

“I’m the one getting ‘em,” Bucky smugly concludes. 

Tony growls in disgust. It’s just so gross imagining any kind of sex life for Bucky. At least he actually has no real images to go along with his imagination. Not like with Peggy and Steve, who can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Tony almost caught them half naked twice now, on the sofa in the study and in the kitchen. The _kitchen_. There are limits that shall never be crossed. It’s completely unsanitary. And no he’s not an hypocrite like Pepper suggested when he reported the incident.

As much as he doesn’t want to talk about penises and where they have been in relation to Bucky, he still is curious about this unexpected relationship between Clint and Bucky.

“Then if it’s not it, what’s stopping you for like, dating him publicly?”

Bucky has a soft smile.

“I’m not sure what we have can be called dating.”

“Don’t you change the subject again, Barnes!” Tony admonishes him and it seems to make Bucky even more amused.

“You really sound like your mom sometimes Tony,” he says fondly.

Tony snorts but doesn’t deny. “You’re doing it again.”

Bucky bows his head. “It’s stupid and Steve has gotten my ears full with this since I told him, but I just can’t shake the feeling that Clint... That he deserves better, you know. Than me,” Bucky finally confesses with an edge of shame.

Tony mulls over this for a short moment but he’s quick to make up his mind about Bucky’s insecurities.

“Want my honest opinion?” 

Bucky makes a face. “Do I?”

“Maybe not, but you’ll get it anyway,” Tony starts while Bucky mumbles something like “Nothing ever stops this mouth of yours.”

“Could be the other way around actually. Clint is a human disaster,” Tony says very seriously and there’s something on Bucky’s features that tells him there are way more than fuck buddies, Bucky doesn’t seem happy at all that Tony called out on Clint. “What I’m saying is that in this team none of us is actually balanced and well adjusted. We all have fucking huge chips on our shoulders and maybe we can make each other better. Also Clint totally is a walking talking tragedy. Just last week he managed to get his trousers stuck in the vent’s lock and instead of calling for help or just get out of this like any normal person would do, he. Took. His. Pants. Off. And fucking left them hanging from the ceiling for days in the common area of the Tower.”

Bucky ducks his head, goes a little red around the ears and smiles like a dumbass in love.

“You’re such a dumbass in love,” Tony says just as he thinks it.

Bucky’s head jerks up and gives Tony a look that could kill him instantly if his eyes were guns. And they could be. The man is one eighth robot, so.

“I don’t. Fuck Tony. Shut up,” he ends up tripping on his words so hard that Tony has to bend over with how much he’s laughing.

“Oh my God you got it hard for the idiot archer of our team.”

“Tony,” Bucky warns, “don’t you fucking call him an idiot in front of me ever again.”

Tony takes a deep breath to calm down.

“It’s awesome man, it’s awesome.” He claps his hand on Bucky’s metal shoulder and tries to give him a shake but the guy is built like a tank, he doesn’t bulge. What was Tony expecting.

“You know your wedding color is gonna be purple right?” 

“Jesus,” Bucky hisses as he shakes his head. “We’re nowhere near getting married asshole.”

“You might not be the next one to get hitched but I can bet it’s gonna happen sooner than you think.”

Bucky blushes a little at that but doesn’t contradict him. He might not be in the mindset to marrying Clint but Tony isn’t blind he sees the way they look at each other. There is something there impossible to ignore, even for Bucky.

“Yeah, and you and I both know who the next ones are.” Bucky jerks his chin towards a table on the other side of the dance-floor.

Peggy is literally sitting on Steve’s lap, giggling like a teenager. She hasn’t been a teenager in eighty years damn it. 

Steve has one hand on the outside of her thigh and he is whispering into her ear, just before brushing her hair from her neck and trailing kisses across her jaw. Peggy squirms under his mouth and hands and Tony wants to gag at the sight. 

But he can’t deny he’s ever seen his mother this happy in many, many years. 

Suddenly it hits him.

“They have probably eloped already without telling us,” Tony tells Bucky without an ounce of humor. 

Bucky opens his mouth and then closes it. He blinks for a second while watching the debauchery Steve and Peggy are offering. Okay maybe it’s too big of a word. It’s just that, that’s _his mum_ alright?

“You’re right. They probably have,” Bucky answers deadpan. “I’m gonna kill this punk if they didn’t tell us anything.”

Tony chuckles. “As long as we can crash their honeymoon as payback.”

“Tony. That’s the most brilliant idea you’ve ever had,” Bucky says with a glimmer in his eyes.

“I got 5 PHDs and so far that was the best compliment you’ve ever said to me.”

“Shut up, pull up your phone and let’s find out if they actually got itched.” Bucky slaps Tony’s arm with the back of his hand.

Tony obliges. “JARVIS,” he asks to the device, “can you find out if there is a marriage license registered to Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers or any of their aliases?”

Bucky leans in to check the results on the phone.

“Oh that motherfucking punk,” Bucky swears as Tony bends over again in a fit of laughter. 

“This is going to be the best vacations ever!”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I wanted Tony to be the current director of SHIELD, taking the mantle after his mother but it ended up not fitting in this installment. Maybe one day I'll write it.
> 
> Hope it didn't suck too much. Thank you thank you for reading!


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